Rip a Strip Off Stigma

My class had another fundraiser today. It was called "Rip a Strip Off Stigma". The main attraction was three men from the program volunteering to have their legs waxed in public. Everyone who made a $20 donation got to pull the wax strip off. They also had an Elvis impersonator, a roller derby, and a raffle. I bought $10 worth of tickets, and I won:

-A French press
-A cheese dish
-30 free movie rentals
-2 hours cleaning service

And they gave me and my buddy three pizzas.

So I'm having a classy wine and cheese party using my fancy new plate with a selection of cheddar cheese and some value-brand red wine.

They thought they were giving me ten movie rentals, too, but they didn't realize that each ticket was worth three!

The woman with the cleaning service is a friend of mine of three years. I'm gonna call her after I wreck the place with this wine and cheeser!

I didn't think I'd spend any money, but I wound up making a real value on the raffle And my friend was getting waxed even though he didn't belong to the group that was facilitating the event. So I wanted to punish him for it.

I wasn't there to volunteer but somehow I wound up selling the raffle tickets. It's like last year when I went to Stand Up For Mental Health, and I showed up a bit early. Wound up helping set up and people started ragging on me for lazing about texting and charging my phone to which I replied that I wasn't volunteering. But then when I went to get my ticket they gave me a volunteer discount and they gave the discount to the girl I brought as well.

That night I won a month of martial arts training in their raffle.

After winning tonight, I got to come home to an email asking about returning to my position as a Summer Program Leader! I'd ideally want something a bit more permanent, but hey, four months of full time employment coming right out of college is hard to turn down! It would take me right to the end of my lease in student housing as well. Might as well use it if I got it.

At WALES we just got our first-year student. How freaky! I remember being a first-year student and coming into WALES, starting work with the second years. Now I'm in my second year, going to mentor the first year. Circle of life, yo.

Fundraising Event

We had our bake sale, silent auction, and games day fundraiser event yesterday. I made pumpkin bread, banana bread, and blueberry pie for the event. I'd never baked a pie before, and the result was so ugly. The crust was cracked and the blueberry juice was bleeding through. I wasn't even going to bring them, but my friend insisted that I do.

I was annoyed when they put them on display as prominent examples. I thought their presence made the rest of the setup look worse. We butchered the slicing job on the already more-ugly pie to top it off.

But they sold! And the ugly pie sold first! I guess people like ugly pie.

It was the day before Pi Day, the 3rd month, of the 14th day, of the 15th year (3.14.15). The only such day this century. I guess because the day falls on a Saturday, the school decided to celebrate a day early. So I walked into school carrying pies on Pi Day. I've never carried pies into the school before, so weird that the only day I would do that would coincidentally fall on the day where people celebrate by eating pies!

I've been nominated for the Carol Gregory Student Leadership Award! It's for Conestoga students who have made a positive difference in the communities. One of my teachers nominated me based in part on my role as a Student Life Intern with the Respect Campaign, as well as my volunteer experience with Student Life, and my academic success in my previous program. Even if I don't get it, just being nominated is a huge accomplishment!

Bake Sale

A little while ago I had an exam for a Family's course. It was at 8:00 AM an with everything else going on, I just wasn't feeling it. I remember leaving that exam feeling very pessimistic.

We got our them back recently. I stated the complaint that "If you get them back during class, you'll only want to review them if you've done well and it will reaffirm your success. If you would actually benefit from a review, it's better to leave it and give them a chance to absorb the new before looking toward a solution."

When I got my test returned, I looked at the front page and asked my neighbours "Does the number on the front of the exam say what your actual grade is? Or is it, like, a percentage for a question in the exam?"

I got 28 out of 29, or 97%.

I realized that the day I will shave my beard is the same day that I do a simulation exercise. In this exercise, we have to go to an apartment which hosts a couple of actors playing a mother and daughter that have hit hard times. Depending on what the greatest bidder is, I might have to walk in there with a blue Fu Manchu.

I'm going to try and learn how to bake a blueberry pie for the bakesale next Friday. It was my favourite recipe from my grandmother, who would bake pies out of wild blueberries that I picked. I won't have the wild blueberries, but I'd still like to give it a shot.

Otherwise, I'm baking pumpkin bread which, while I have in the past complained was too squat and dense, has actually become a fan-favourite among those I have baked for.

Shave My Beard

So it's a go-ahead for the Shave Gryphon's Beard initiative. My fundraising group that is collecting for the Patrice Butts Fund saw my beard as a resource, and for the first time in five years, I'm making myself vulnerable to being shaved.

I grew it in Katimavik when I entered a group beard-growing competition. Perhaps, since its birth came at the start of my educational journey, it's only proper that it dies at the end of it.

We decided on $250 for the beard. They said $100, I said $500, we met in the middle.

If it happens, it will be on April 2nd. I will be shaved in public and video taped to be presented on the Internet. The highest bidder will choose a facial hair style for me. So if you ever wondered what I'd look like with a goatee, muttonchops, handlebar mustache, Fu Manchu etc. Now's your time to find out.

I'm hoping for a Hollywood Hulk Hogan, but and I'm worried about those creative types. I've heard suggestions of one-side shaved one-side not, beard-hair Pikachu cheeks, a reverse-chinstrap, stripes, and of course, a Hitler mustache.

I'd keep the chosen style for a week, then shave it off completely. Then immediately grow my beard back with my amazing facial hair growth.

I started a GoFundMe which takes online donations. So do it.

http://www.gofundme.com/n9or2s

Raading Week

Strange string of days recently. Friday the 13th followed by Valentine's Day, followed by the anniversary of the Canadian flag, followed by Family Day.

It's Reading Week too, which is kind of an equivalent of Spring Break, just not in the spring, and with the superficial expectation put to it that students will spend it reading.

My Extend-a-Family contract fell through. The family decided to spend their funding on something else. Found out about that on Friday the 13th. After my previous prospective contract's decision not to take a worker, I'm feeling a little pessimistic.

The two Respect Meetings from last week were record low in attendance as well, so I'm feeling a little defeated overall.

School Email

Last Tuesday, I was on the bus to placement and I saw the man and woman who'd had that altercation a few days earlier. They were sitting in the same places as before. I guess they didn't feel the need to build space. The guy had his backpack on his lap, so I guess the woman won that dispute. In a way, I'm happy that the guy learned proper bus etiquette, but in another, it's kind of aggravating that the woman might feel encouraged to use that communication style.

I got some lining for my bundle buggy. Awwwww, yeah, no more anxiety about items falling through the iron mesh!

Roll Up the Rim is happening at Tim Horton's. There's a participant at WALES who I always have guess if I'll win because he. Is. Never. Wrong. Just one of those weird oddities of life. I had him guess my first Roll Up, he said I'd win which, of course, happened. Good way to start things off.

You can't just use a win on your regular order, I believe. You have to get the best value for your win. Felt a little weird asking for the Caramel Dream Latte, though.

I hate the school emailing system. I'm supposed to send a Respect Question of the Week every Monday. I'm supposed to include everyone in a BCC so their emails come in individually, but the BCC option doesn't wwork on my home computer for some reason. So I go to use a school computer, but the school computer doesn't let me copy/paste addresses. Last time, I wound up typing in every address manually for the entire campaign, which takes forever.

And when I tried copy/pasting from my home computer, it wouldn't send because it needs a semicolon between each address. So I tried putting a semicolon between each, but then the address recognition function kicked in and switched the recognized addresses to student names. But for some reason when it did this, it changed every address that didn't have a semicolon into one, giant, unrecognized address that it wouldn't let me edit.

 So now I've thought to copy/paste into a word processor and then manually put the semicolons in, then copy/past from that into the address bar. This way, I only have to make modifications when new people join Respect. But the graph that I pull data from auto-formats in a way that it can't be put in the address bar. So now I've got to do each address individually and put semicolons between them. Gonna take a few hourrs maybe.

It's annoying because the address recognition function and auto-formatting are supposed to be convenient, but their side-effects make my life a lot harder.

Snow Day

Last night we had a snowstorm and today all the schools were closed, including Conestoga. During my time at Conestoga, that's only happened once before, and that was two years ago when I was in HSF. Apparently we have a reputation for never closing, something about how we double as a cellphone tower and closing the school costs them money.

But school closing doesn't help me when I've got placement on Mondays. Well, guess what? WALES was closed too!

Yahoooo!!! I didn't think I got snow days as an adult! I feel like a kid!